what it feels like to not want to write

What does it feel like to not want to write?

It starts in your thighs.

They get clenchy and pulsey, as if your legs are pre-rejecting the idea of sitting down in your writing chair.

Let’s walk over there and clean up that dust bunny, they say. Let’s take a stroll to the bathroom mirror to re-re-tweeze your eyebrows.

Then it travels to your stomach – the high part where (I think?) you perform the Heimlich. You should absolutely write this morning, you think. No, you absolutely need to write this morning.

The cavity between your lungs insta-tightens like it just put on Spanx.

But what the hell will I write? I have nothing to say. There’s nothing worth saying. No one needs to hear from me right now.

Your brain has taken over the battle, but your stomach still feels each blow.

It doesn’t matter! You come to the page every day and find the words! Like Julia Cameron. Like Stephen King. Like David Sedaris. Like all the writers that really make it!

You push out a breath like a teenager that just slumped down in her dinner table chair.

But I’m too tired. Too frustrated. Too sad. Too into my day already. My husband is on a call and there’s a leaf blower across the street and my coffee hasn’t kicked in and I can’t possibly write under these conditions.

You walk yourself into your office. You sit yourself down at your chair. You make yourself open your laptop. It’s all forced, like the way your body moves the entire time you’re in the dentist chair.

Then you sit there. And sit there. And sit there.

Clenching.

Eventually there’s a stomach shift from one large rock to many drunk butterflies. And your butt starts to twitch.

Or, mine does, though it’s more of a back-and-forth squeeze. Left cheek, right cheek. Left left, right right. Left right left right left right left.

If I were five the teacher would ask if I need to use the bathroom. I do not, but that has never stopped me from going. On the toilet I am allowed my Instagram.

What does it feel like to not want to write?

It feels heavy. Outsized. Dread-inducing. Identity denying. Maybe like waking up and deciding - shit - I think I don’t actually want to be a doctor…

I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. I am a writer.

That doesn’t want to write.

Years ago I read that Andre Agassi hates playing tennis and I thought how fucking sad. Shortly after I read that Andre Agassi is coaching his son in tennis and I thought makes perfect sense.

What does it feel like to start writing when you don’t want to write?

Like sitting in a roller coaster car before the ride starts.

Now the clench is in your forearms. It’s less of a squeeze and more like 360 degrees of weight. They’re heavy and tight, like they’re pre-rejecting the act of moving across the keyboard.

Let’s just use these to re-do your top knot! Or, better yet, have them scan every inch of your face for forthcoming zits?

The crossing, uncrossing and re-crossing of your legs is your body’s final attempt at escape. Left right left right left right left. They’re propellors willing you to magically take flight.

You have now sat for ten, maybe twelve, maybe - fuck - twenty whole minutes without writing a single word.

It would be mortifying to walk away at this point.

What did you do today?

I aggressively avoided writing.

You decide you would rather fight through the discomfort of getting some shit words down than sit frozen for another second. This decision is a literal miracle. It can never be predicted, repeated or explained. It just…happens.

You write a sentence that’s fine. You write a second that’s better. The second inspires a third and fourth and fifth that make you want to go back and re-write the first, but you know that’s too dangerous at this point.

The Spanx on your gut dissolve like those magic stitches they invited in the ‘90s. You realize that you have maybe not been breathing for a long time and so you take a breath. In the count of five that passes as you inhale/exhale, you notice that your butt is not twitching. Your legs have been crossed right-over-left for a full three sentences. The butterflies have sobered up.

What are you writing?

Who knows. Who cares. Not you, suddenly. Your brain has forgotten to interject with whether or not this is productive, sellable, in your voice, going to make somebody mad.

You remember Malcolm Gladwell saying that if he writes three or maybe four good paragraphs a day, he feels like a lucky man.

You’re a whole page in. You’re outpacing The Tipping Point guy. You’ve tipped your own MF point, if that’s what that book is about?

You are no longer not writing.

What does it feel like to have written?

Remember that one time you hit the high note on your hard karaoke song in your skinniest jeans with your biggest crush watching?

It feels like that.